I always enjoy the Olympics, and it's also the only sports I ever watch.
The opening ceremonies were indeed a bit too long, for my taste, but they certainly did do a great job of highlighting a lot of the history. Even the uglier side of the Industrial Revolution was shown very effectively, I thought.
The answer to overly long opening ceremonies is to record them on your PVR. Then you can fast-forward the parts you don't care too much about, and compress the whole thing by at least 2:1. They did do a very good job with the parade of nations, I thought, to keep it moving smartly.
Since we don't subscribe to any cable or satellite, we're limited to NBC "main channel" coverage. I was interested to see in the paper that many people are annoyed with NBC, for not putting more on their NBC channel. I was really obnoxed with NBC for only allowing viewing of their online streams to those with cable or satellite subscriptions. If those online streams include ads, I am assuming they do, it seems like a bit of an excess of greed, yes?
And even leaving aside Internet streaming, with digital TV, NBC could be making much more effective use of their terrestrial broadcast spectrum than they are. They could transmit more than one stream, for example, or they could transmit Olympic coverage even during times of day where the main channel is busy with other material. If these streams are ad supported, there's little excuse for not doing so. This behavior hardly engenders any feelings of loyalty toward them, from me.

Max,
Don't worry about it, It's among the few things on life that can wait a lifetime. ;-)
I have already taken much of your time.
I am more interested in the wall of lights project, sorry I missed the last live-chat. Plan to attend this Thursday, if work does not take me away. ;-)

I also watched. Generally it exceeded my expectations. And being a Brit I got most of the cultural references.
Of course, it went on slightly too long, but what can you do. People expect these big pageants and I hear they did some last minute cutting to get the time down.
That's tough on the additional trick cyclists who probably spent months learning their parts.
And i suspect that around the world we may have looked a bit bonkers (mad) but then again we are...so that is ok.
Any guesses as to what the blue-birds-on-bicycles symbolized?

Hi Max,
I have to agree with you, the Olympics pageantry was remarkable, I liked the symbolic passing of the torch from the accomplished athlete to the aspiring young group, and the lighting of the central piece was a niece sight.
The other unique British icons were nice touches, but from the technical point of view I enjoyed the LED panels, specially the image of a running silhouette among the stadium from what appear to me, made from small blocks of white LEDs. I asked couple of frineds and seems that this cool effect was unnoticed by many.